This invention relates to material feed mechanisms, and more particularly to a machine for making wood moldings, which machine accommodates the feeding of short lengths of wood in spaced-apart relationship.
Machines for making wood moldings heretofore have involved the feeding of wood through the machine by means of longitudinally spaced-apart driven feed rolls. Thus, pieces of wood having length shorter than the distance between adjacent feed rolls necessarily had to be fed through the machine in end-abutting relationship. As a consequence, the ends of the pieces of wood had to be left unfinished until the wood pieces had been processed through the contour-producing cutter heads.
As a specific illustration, there are many objects of manufacture such as panel doors, cabinet drawers and others which require dowel pins, finger joints and other projections on the ends of the molding pieces. It is desirable to provide such ends before finishing the longitudinal surfaces of the molding pieces, in order to insure against tearing or otherwise disfiguring the exposed surfaces of the finished article. Prior molding machines have not accommodated this pre-finishing of the ends.
Further, the outer, finished side of the molding pieces heretofore have had to be produced on the bottom face of the boards as they are fed through the molding machine, in order to minimize shine produced by the pressure contact of the hold down shoe against the upper surface of the wood. This arrangement is satisfactory in the production of moldings having at least two laterally spaced portions of equal maximum thickness, whereby the moldings are maintained in stable, flat condition during transport through the machine. However, the procedure cannot be utilized in the production of moldings which vary in thickness from one side to the other. Accordingly, moldings of the latter type require the finish side to face upward and hence the area in frictional pressure contact with the hold down shoe acquires and undesirable shine.
Still further, the feed of wood pieces by means of live feed rolls heretofore has required the cutter heads to be rotated in the direction opposite the direction of feed, because the lack of absolute control of the wood pieces at all times in the outfeed direction precludes operation of cutter heads in the direction to provide the more precise climb cuts. Accordingly, operation of the cutter heads in the direction opposite the climb cut direction necessarily produces undesirable tear-outs and other disfiguring characteristics on the surfaces of the moldings.